december 14, 2005
So, if you have kept up with my blog, you'll know that I switched jobs recently. I jumped ship from Sony and joined Yahoo!. The one thing that I looked for while I was job hunting and applying for a job at Yahoo! were other employees' experiences with the company. I knew some people that worked there -- and one of them, Ishi was quite glassy-eyed and happy when describing working there. But, still I wanted to find out more.Some digging around and I found JR, Russell, and Jeremy. Jeremy had a lot of older stuff describing working at Yahoo!, Russell had just joined the company, and JR was (up until the time I found his blog) in the closet about where he worked. Still, I wanted to know more. Now, that I have worked at Yahoo! for more almost six months, I wanted to write a little bit about my experiences at Yahoo!. Also, I have been seeing a lot of searches for "working at yahoo" in my logs, so I am figuring that others are also looking for what life is like at Yahoo!.Let me start out by saying: Working at Yahoo! is awesome. If you have the slightest interest in working for Yahoo!, head over to the Careers at Yahoo! page and start searching -- and drop in your resume, because you will be surprised when they actually call you. I got a call out of the blue for a job I did not sign up for, all because my resume was in the system.
The Yahoo! that you knew from before the dotcom bust is not the Yahoo! that exists now. The Yahoo! that exists now is a true to life corporation. There is a fair amount of red tape and lots of review boards. Things get done, but not as wildly quick as in a start-up dotcom company. The higher-ups do care a lot about the financials and it shows. But, before you despair: the spirit of the old Yahoo! is still around. There are foosball tables, pool tables, arcade games, and air hockey tables all over campus. There are free coffees, lattes, and mochas for everyone. Soda is free. And best of all, there is an energy and enthusiasm that can be felt even when strolling through the campus. You can see what we value here.
Life at Yahoo! is stressful sometimes, at least for me in my group (the Ad Systems Group). But, overall it is a great place to work. Everyone works hard, and I won't lie about the hours, there are some long hours of work. I am glad that I can work from home from time to time, that makes things easier. There are some good rewards for working at Yahoo! like the annual company picnic and the Year End Party. Both were quite lavish and fun. The people that I work around and work with are great. Actually, everyone seems to be quite friendly and easy going. The atmosphere at Yahoo! is one of the things that makes it a great place to work.
So, here are some observations that may be interesting to people who are looking at Yahoo! as a place to join. The cubes, at least on main campus and the two buildings across the street, are really made up of these colors: gray, yellow and purple. The conference rooms do have purple chairs. On main campus there is a huge cafeteria, URLs (pronouced like: Earls) that serves really good food -- and you can have a complete meal for around $5 (meal + drink). There's a huge gym on main campus and it is open to all employees 24 hours a day. There is a Y! Mart, which is like a small convenience store on main campus, you can get last minute things there and even rent DVDs to watch. The Yahoo! Store sells all kinds of Yahoo! goodies like t-shirts, bags, electronics, and other things. Quarterly earnings announcement parties mean free beer (and food)! There are some serious perks for working at Yahoo! (but, you'll have to join to find out about them).
Ok, I know this is sounding like a propaganda piece for Yahoo!, but really it is fun place to work and I am glad that I joined. Not that life at Sony wasn't cool and all, but Yahoo! is a lot better. I know we are still hiring, so do visit the Careers at Yahoo! page to see if there is something that fits you.
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